Columnist: Stigma Surrounds Mental Illness Among Black Men.

In his column in the Washington Post (9/25), Courtland Milloy observes that misdiagnosis of “mental illness among black men has long been an acute problem – with consequences that extend beyond the Navy Yard killings to the daily gun violence throughout urban America.” Milloy quotes William Lawson, who chairs the psychiatry department at the Howard University College of Medicine. Lawson said that not only do African American males have less access to mental health treatment, but they are also “much more likely to be viewed as having a behavioral problem rather than a mental disorder.” Milloy concludes, “There is such a stigma around mental illness that black males themselves would rather be seen as ‘bad instead of mad,’ as Lawson puts it.” The end result is that more black males may end up incarcerated instead of getting needed treatment.